walkingwithfandomcom-20200222-history
Smilodon
Smilodon was the biggest and most powerful sabre-toothed cat of all times, and definatly the most famous prehistoric cat. It lived in North and South America at 2.5 million to 100,000 years ago. Originaly from North America, Smilodon came to South America 2 million years ago and replaced the native hunters, Phorusrhacos, as top predators. Smilodon was over 100 to 500 kg depending on the species. There is no such thing as a Sabre Tooth Tiger. The correct name for these beasts is Sabre Tooth Cat and there have been many different species. The largest, at 300 kilograms is Smilodon, which means “''Knife Tooth''”. A million years ago, Sabre–Tooth Cats were once the top predators in North America. Originally from North America, they came to South America two million years ago. The balance of life in South America changed as they became and took over the role as the top predators. As they spread down to South America, they were fast taking over from one of the strangest predators the world has ever known, a ten–foot–tall killer bird called Phorusrhacos. Fossils at the La Brea tar pits in California show that it may have hunted in packs, as shown in Walking with Beasts, episode 5, "Sabre Tooth". Thus, they could have behaved so much like modern lions, with females doing most, at least 90% of the hunting and males most of inner-species fighting. When hunting, the females hunted together as a pack, inching forward to set the trap. They could stalk herds of animals for hours. Gradually, they fanned out with the lead female moving wide – trying to encircle their prey. Smilodon were powerful killers and these cats had amazing bursts of speed and were able to accelerate explosively, but only over a short distance as they were not built for long chases. Unless they got close, they didn’t stand a chance. One false move and they would have to start all over again. Once they charged at their prey, they would erupt out of the grass. The lead female drove the prey towards the other females. The sabre-teeth of the animal were used to bite the prey's neck, destroy the blood vessels and strangle the windpipe. With just one bite, the prey quickly died. It was those huge incisor teeth which made smilodon such a successful, albeit specialized killer. However, these were the original double-edged swords. The lethal, 20 centimetered saber-teeth were actually quite delicate and fragile. Smilodon couldn't bite into bone, and so they ate only the soft fleshier parts of the body. This was very wasteful, and thus other creatures, like the terror birds and Megatherium (a giant ground sloth of South America), often scavenged at the cats' kills. Smildon had evolved to hunt large herbivores like Toxodon and Macrauchenia in South America, while in North America it hunted woolly and Columbian mammoths, Hagerman Horses and giant camels, steppe bison and prehistoric xenarthrans (ground sloths and glyptodonts), so when they began to die out and be replaced by smaller, modern herbivores like the pampas deer of South America, it too died out. Similar to the Iguanodon dinosaurs and the Brontotheres, Smilodon were very successful predators, and survived up until as recently as 10,000 years ago, but eventually, the world around them changed to much. The climate became cooler and drier. The larger prey the specialized in killing disappeared. The sabre tooth world came to an end. In addition, the fifth episode of Walking With Beasts showed how a pair of smioldon males took over a pride and killed the original youngsters, so that the females would accept them and raise their own offspring, again just like modern large predators such as lions. Smilodon has appeared in the Impossible Picture series Walking With Beasts, Prehistoric Park, and Primeval. In '''Prehistoric Park '''ep. 4, Nigel Marven and Sara Douglas-Hamilton went to post-Ice Age South America to rescue several of these animals from extinction. They managed to save and capture an adult pair, though they were unable to rescue any cubs at the time, and later the adult animals bred, thus becoming the second prehistoric animal to breed in captivity. In '''Primeval '''ep 2x03, a sabre-tooth cat was one of the animals encounters Nick Cutter and his team in season 2. It had killed several people, eventually including Stephen Hart, Nick's assistant, but itself was killed at the season's finale. Appearances *Walking with Beasts *Prehistoric Park *Primeval Category:Primeval Animals Category:Walking with Beasts Animals Category:Prehistoric Park Animals Category:Mammals Category:Predator Category:Walking with Wikia Category:Apex Predator